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COINS AND MEDALS 





By Charlotte Hardin 

From a Flat House-top 


Coins and Medals 

By CHARLOTTE HARDIN 



Boston 

The Four Seas Company 
1921 


<?S"3 6 S> 

hW 

Copyright, 1921, by 

The Four Seas Company 


APR -2 1921 


The Four Seas Press 
Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 


©C1A613462 

->isd . /. 


CONTENTS 

PART I. 

Foreword.9 

The Unknown Cup-bearer . . 11 

The Forgotten Tasks .... 12 

The Glittering Life . . . . 15 

The Crystal Shell.16 

The Changing Rumors ... 18 

The Foolish Wind.20 

The Dream of Statues. ... 23 

The Rejected Gift.25 

The Completed Gesture ... 27 

PART II. 

Young Satyr.31 

Aphrodite Under Glass . . . 33 

The Turning Statuette ... 34 

Eve.35 

Adam.36 

Figurine of Tanagra .... 37 

Ceres.38 

Martyr.39 

The Tempest.40 

















PART I. 


To Marcel Schwob 




ft? ILL you interest yourself in me? 1 
am a shred of paper blowing about 
the world. The wind that first lifted me 
should have carried me to my destina¬ 
tion: a beautiful word waited to be 
written upon me, and I was to be laid 
away among the petals of roses. But 
the wind veered and my destination was 
lost. Since then I have drifted into 
strange places, and I have been inscribed 
by many hands: but always the wind has 
lifted me and carried me on, and I 
myself do not remember the beautiful 
word that I am seeking. Will you in¬ 
terest yourself in me? I am a shred of 
paper blowing about the world. 

















He stands behind me, but his arms en¬ 
circle my shoulders, and his hands hold 
for me a cup beyond compare. Is it you, 
Life? Do you offer me your wine? Or 
is it the other, the one whom I have 
always sought ? I have learned to doubt 
the gifts of the unknown, and I stand 
hesitant, remembering the dooms of 
cities, and of maidens detained under¬ 
ground. Upon the surface of the garnet 
wine dreams are floating: I see the gleam 
of garlands that have crowned the fumes 
of poison: from the shallow bell of the 
cup ring the echoes of music that has 
spoken falsely to lovers of old. 

I bend my head: a golden dust of 
flowers floats upward: it seems that it 
must at last be you. If this is so, I shall 
neither accept nor refuse your gift. I 
fear the excess of happiness that you 
may bring me: but I will stand through 
the day without growing weary in order 
to feel the pressure of your arms about 
my shoulders. 

the unknown cup-hearer 


ii 


To-day was the day of visiting in the 
city, when wealthy ladies drive out in 
their glittering carriages. They are 
dressed in pale silks, weighed down with 
bands of velvet and fur, in all the soft 
shades of brown that line the shells of 
nuts. Rings sparkle on their fingers, and 
around their necks hang chains of flash¬ 
ing white jewels and stones of flat cool 
green. Their hair is combed in waves, 
it is fragrant and lustrous: I have heard 
that they spread it out in the sun for 
hours each day. 

Some of these ladies were to stop at 
my gate to-day, therefore I rose early to 
prepare for their visit. The hinges of 
my door must be burnished: a tall weed 
had been growing for days through a 
crack in the pavement, and the steps were 
littered with bark that had blown down 
during the night from the palm-trees. 
There were also little cakes to bake, and 
thin tea-cups to set in readiness. 

But first I visited the plum-tree that 
grows in my garden. Sitting under its 


12 


branches in the early morning, I looked 
at the spikes of creamy blossoms that 
crowded the stiff boughs and pushed 
above the leaves of soft dull green. This 
is the little tree that puts out its blooms 
in the autumn; they emerge pale and 
delicate from the bands of their velvet 
casings. The petals do not wither 
until winter comes: then icy winds rock 
the furry clusters, and they are powdered 
with fine blowing sleet: but through the 
cold months they live, and continue to 
swell. The late spring finds them turning 
from green to bright yellow . . . ripe 
fruits, in the fresh wet days when other 
trees are beginning to flower. Under 
the murky sun of autumn they send out 
their faint fragrance, the fragrance of 
must, of wild grapes dropping in the 
forest, of sweet nuts that have lain under 
the wet leaves. 

As I sat beneath the tree at noon, I 
saw countless moths visit the flowers for 
their honey—the gray moths of autumn, 
small white butterflies, and swarms of 


13 


late bees. The afternoon went by, and in 
the street flashed the carriages of visiting 
ladies. Alighting on white door-stones, 
they passed shining knockers, they held 
in their slender fingers cups of delicate 
tea. But when they reached my gateway, 
they drove past, saying—“This is a for¬ 
saken house. The hinges of the door 
are tarnished, the steps are littered with 
palm-bark, and there is a tall weed that 
has been growing for days through a 
crack in the pavement.” 

the forgotten tasks 


14 


My life is glistening and hung with 
jewels: I go dressed in the color of the 
sun. Green and scarlet are my birthright, 
and my evenings are woven of purple. 
In the night I know the softness of black: 
and winter heaps for me his glittering 
load. The silver of brooks washes me, 
and my heart grows faint at the innocent 
yellow of butterflies over the water. The 
far blue hills have broken their silence, 
and the mountains have answered my 
questioning. The sands of my days run 
golden: my life sparkles, and is hung 
with jewels. 

the glittering life 


15 


I have always lived in this crystal shell, 
and I have often wondered at the curious 
flatness of the objects that I discern 
through it. But of late the wind has 
made an opening, a crevice through 
which he comes to visit me. It was he 
whom I had heard tapping rapidly upon 
the crystal: finally he broke it, and the 
hollow shell was filled with the soft 
flurry of his entrance. From day to 
day he brings me news of the world. 

“The birds are quarrelling among 
themselves.” 

“But why are they quarrelling, Wind?” 

“They do not know.” 

One day he came hastily and said: 
“Listen! The world is going to pieces. 
There is terrible noise, fire and quaking 
on land and sea. The earth is torn, the 
waves are driven over the tops of cliffs. 
The sky alone remains unchanged.” 

I listened, but I could hear only a 
vague sighing in the distance. 

It is due to the wind, too, that I have 
received various windfalls of fruits and 
of nuts. I have examined these care- 
16 


fully: some are rough or furry, some 
pitted with tiny holes. Only the apples 
are as I had thought them, smooth 
shining balls of red glass. The ferns 
that have pushed their way through the 
crevice are rough also, and the long 
grasses are as fine and sharp-edged as 
knives. 

At mid-day I look through the opening 
at the soft billows of clouds that swell 
upward from the horizon. Some of them 
are as thick as milk, and lean over as 
though they would fall upon the world: 
others float filmy and vaporous upon the 
surface of the sky. The blue itself is 
deeper in the distance, and thins to a 
pale flatness as it approaches the sun. 
At twilight the nearer clouds grow rough 
and dark, like patches upon the sweeping 
stretch of rose-colored fleece. 

I am grateful to the wind for the 
curious pleasures that he has given me: 
but I have asked him not to widen the 
crevice in my wall of glass. 

the crystal shell 


1 7 


He who passed at daybreak left the 
print of his footsteps dark upon the 
dewy grass: under the wide tree at the 
corner of the meadow he had stood for 
a moment: and a newly-opened rose 
swaying from the hedge had been robbed 
of her fragrance. I followed the foot¬ 
prints and listened to what they told me 
of the one who had passed. “Why were 
you asleep ?” they murmured . . . “Why 
were you asleep?” “Here he stood 
waiting,” whispered the deep footprints 
under the meadow-tree. The rose 
brushed against me and sighed, “My 
fragrance did not satisfy him.” 

I gathered up all these rumors: they 
lay in my hands like thin plates of silver: 
how cool they were against my cheek! 
But when I took them out secretly in 
the evening, they had changed, they were 
limp and shrivelled like withering leaves. 
“He who passed was in search of no 
one,” they murmured. “He stood beneath 
the great tree looking over the meadows 
and longing for the fields of his home.” 


18 


“It was the wind that robbed the rose of 
her fragrance.” 

Let me no longer stay in these smooth 
green fields that are full of deceiving 
whispers: I will rather live alone with the 
wind in the deserted tower that stands 
at the far edge of the broken swamp¬ 
lands. 

the changing rumors 


19 


The wind blows about everywhere, but 
he has not yet learned wisdom. He 
whispered to me one day—“To be happy, 
one must give and take at the same time.” 
And when I asked him how this was 
possible, he chuckled over his shoulder: 
“Ask the fruit-trees.” But I have found 
out the truth of the matter from the old 
woman who lives under the hill. She 
told me: “It is impossible to give and 
take at the same time: a choice must 
be made/’ 

On another day the wind said:—“The 
world is longing for love and beauty.” 
When the old woman heard this, she 
laughed aloud. “It is I can tell you the 
truth about that,” she said. “I was born 
with the desire to give. I would accept 
nothing: I set out to travel through the 
world with gifts. And it seemed to me 
that there was nothing better to give 
than love and beauty: so I carried them 
with me everywhere. As to love, it is 
a simple thing enough. We know a great 
deal about it, and I soon found that 


20 


people did not care much for it. Some 
were too tired, others could not spare the 
time: and those who seemed to be search¬ 
ing for it did not recognize it when I 
offered it to them. So I put love away. 
But with beauty it is different. We do 
not know at all what it is made of: it 
appears in the most unexpected places, 
and even the wise men cannot account 
for it. It may be for this reason that 
people are afraid of beauty: certainly 
there is at times something terrifying 
about it. I found that a great many 
whom I approached with it went away 
quickly, or spoke of something else: and 
there were the weary and the occupied. 
I found also many who were continually 
wishing for beauty. I went to them with 
a sunset and a spray of mist, but they 
had already contented themselves in a 
shop with little painted candlesticks. So 
I laid beauty too away, and I kept out 
only green-and-red firecrackers and 
sugared cherries beaded upon straws for 
the children, who want everything, and 


21 


soft woolen shawls dyed in the colors of 
twilight for the shoulders of old people. 
—Do not ever listen to anyone who tells 
you that the world is longing for love 
and beauty.” 

The old woman is always right: it is 
well known that she has never told a lie. 
Yet there are days in the spring, when 
the swamp-hollows are full of pale lily- 
heads and the horizon lies flat against 
fresh tender skies . . . there are days 
when I follow the wind from morning 
until night over the endless swamp-lands. 

the foolish wind 


22 


In my dream I could not tell whether 
I were in a lofty vaulted room or in some 
dark ethereal space, some region hitherto 
unvisited by men. At first the darkness 
seemed uninhabited, but gradually I was 
able to see through it, and I became 
aware of a company that peopled it. This 
was the home of statues. Here they 
moved in a serene harmony, passing each 
other in curves and orbits that were like 
the orbits of the celestial bodies. Their 
mighty stature rose beyond my vision: I 
had only glimpses of laurelled brows and 
of broad uncovered breasts. Sometimes 
as they neared one another in their 
measured passage a greeting was ex¬ 
changed. Tidings passed from one to 
another, and I found that I could under¬ 
stand their massive speech. Minute, and 
concealed in a corner of their universe, 
I watched these lofty beings: I heard the 
words that issued from their calm and 
motionless lips. There was no other 
sound, but it seemed that the slow weav¬ 
ing of their great forms produced a silent 


23 


harmony, that sprang to higher pitch 
when the curves of their orbits touched. 

For a time these things went on: and 
then the statues began to be aware that 
some alien was among them. There 
were mutterings, hollow rolling sounds, 
an angry murmur at the discovery of the 
secret of their motion, a more hurried 
moving in narrower orbits. I covered 
my face with my hands and sought to 
blot myself out in the darkness: but it 
was too late. The collected statues were 
advancing upon me in a compact column: 
they moved with the slow inevitable 
progress of a billow gathering force. One 
moment more—I had a sight of laurelled 
brows and broad uncovered breasts. 
Then the white mass solidified and rolled 
upon me, and my life fled out into the 
darkness like a flying foam before the 
risen mountain of tempestuous seas. 

the dream of statues 


24 


I am she whom you drew from the ocean 
at midnight. The black waters had 
closed over me, my eyes were filled with 
visions of the shimmering depths, and 
already the sea-weed clogged my mouth 
and mixed with my streaming hair. And 
then you came, the fearless swimmer, you 
came through the waveless sea, cutting 
the flat surface in figures of pale flame, 
that flashed out and perished under the 
midnight sky. 

I do not know how the dark hours 
passed: but as the sun rose you were 
beside me on the sands. You stroked the 
water from my hair, and I felt the pres¬ 
sure of your fingers upon my wrist. As 
my eyes opened, you withdrew three 
paces and sat looking at me. Now the 
morning sun has warmed me and I am 
ready to go, but I fear that you will not 
take me with you. Having saved me 
from the black waters, will you be con¬ 
tented to leave me here? The life that 
you have drawn upon the sands is not 
as it was before. Something of old sea- 


25 


magic has permeated its tissues, and it is 
overcast with the iridescent film of 
shells. There are in it the vague desires 
of mermaids and their plaintive songs, 
the despairs of the great leaping fish 
when he feels death approaching, the 
monotonous surging of sea-flowers and 
of the many-colored wavering grasses. 
The bronze of my hair is more ruddy 
since your hands have passed over it, 
and the blood beats through my pulses 
with a deep purpose and a secret wish. 
Will you indeed go on your way alone? 
I offer you a life that belongs to no one. 

the rejected gift 


26 


For many weeks I remained alone in my 
room sewing glass beads upon a piece of 
tapestry. The dress of the maiden who 
sat upon the garden bench, I worked in 
little beads of ivory. Tiny honey-colored 
beads outlined her hair, and the knot of 
flowers at her breast I picked out in flat 
shades of blue and pink. For the 
fountain in the background, that rose 
and never fell, I strung together many 
threads of crystal beads, making a spark¬ 
ling plume that stood upright in its empty 
marble basin. The coat of the youth 
who sat beside the maiden I crusted with 
a deep brown shadowed in purple: and 
his strange eyes were surely the color of 
a topaz. One of his hands held a three- 
cornered hat rimmed with a fringe of 
white. His other arm was outstretched, 
and it seemed about to rest upon the 
shoulder of the maiden. Darting pains 
ran up my fingers as I sewed the purple 
beads upon the sleeve of this unsupported 
arm, and in the night the tingling of my 
hand kept me from rest. 

But finally I slept, and dreamed. In 
27 


my dream I myself was the maiden who 
sat upon the garden bench. After a time 
it seemed that my stiff jewelled dress 
melted, and slipped into a creamy thin¬ 
ness : the flat knot of flowers at my breast 
softened and drooped into blush-roses, 
and under my skin ran the moving flood 
of life. I turned to my lover, and I saw 
that he too had become animate. Only 
his eyes remained strange, his strange 
eyes of the color of a topaz. As I gazed 
into them his arm, so long outstretched 
in the air, stirred, and drooped, and came 
to rest upon my shoulder: his hand lay 
on my arm, and through the thin tissues 
of my dress I felt the warm coursing 
of his blood. 

Now, with the sound of a necklace 
snapping, the hundred threads of the 
fountain broke, and its shallow beads slid 
and huddled to the ground. In their 
place arose the living waters: they rose, 
and blew out in spray, and rose again, 
and fell at last into the hollow shell of 
the marble that awaited them. 

the completed gesture 
28 


PART II. 


To Julien Benda 


“Veux-tu que je t’apporte une plume de couleur, 
Une goutte de miel 
Une cuisse d’abeille 
Une corolle de vSronique, dis?” 


Jean de Bosschfcre 


YOUNG SATYR 
[ Praxiteles ] 

In a white cloud of floating dust I saw 
you, young mountaineer, standing at the 
end of the bridge waiting patiently for 
the passage of a long line of speeding 
motors and heavy wagons. An inhabitant 
of the heart of mountains, you stood in¬ 
differently upon the highway where the 
world passes always. Pressing against 
the cow which you were leading, you 
leaned slightly backward, your arms out¬ 
spread upon her velvety dark sides . . . 
It comes to my mind, the attitude that 
you recall to me. So stands the young 
satyr of Praxiteles, resting his arms 
carelessly upon the low branch of a tree 
behind him: so he leans, and the lovely 
muscles of his body ripple and stretch, 
and evoke the illusion of life itself from 
marble. You lack only his mocking 
glance, his hair crowned with vine-leaves. 

But the young satyrs were not all 
satiric: there were a few like you, pen- 


sive, and careless of the world that passed 
before them. Issuing from their mossy 
caves where brooks dripped softly in the 
deep silences, these looked with indif¬ 
ference upon the games of their brothers 
and upon the glimpsed pastimes of men. 
Like yours, their gaze was distant, a little 
vague: I could not divine what thought 
lived or was drowned in those limpid 
depths—But with your young and supple 
body you evoked the antique memory. 

I thank you, young rustic, for this 
relaxed and gentle attitude that has 
drawn around me the current of a cool 
air from far away, the air of the Grecian 
gallery that holds the young satyr who 
troubles my dreams. You, uncrowned, 
almost without identity, you are well 
worth these noisy cars, these heavy 
thundering wagons powdering with fine 
dust the patient animal that supports 
your unforgettable gesture of ephemeral 
lassitude. 


32 


APHRODITE UNDER GLASS 


Goddess, they have placed your gracious 
head within four walls of thick glass. 
It seems that you are too precious to be 
gazed upon directly: only through crystal 
can be seen the remoteness of your 
antique beauty. 

But the light falls upon glass with 
shimmering refractions: color is streaked 
across your white forehead, and the l'nes 
of your cheeks seem to waver. I had 
turned and peered around you, and I had 
never been able to achieve the full vision 
of you. 

But once as I was leaving, I looked 
back over my shoulder at you. The light 
fell so that the heavy glass formed a 
mirror, and from it, as from the rubbed 
surface of a plate of Grecian silver, the 
reflection of your countenance gazed at 
me. The shadowy image seemed no 
longer of stone, but of a pallid flesh. 
Out of the weariness of your timeless 
beauty you looked at me, and at last I 
understood and cherished the illusion 
of glass. 


33 


THE TURNING STATUETTE 


It does not please me, little god in terra 
cotta, that you should turn at the touch 
of every passing hand. I have remained 
near you for hours: I have seen the 
children in aprons who played a jig with 
the handle fastened to your pedestal. 
You twirled rapidly before them, in the 
midst of bursts of shrill laughter; but I 
said nothing, because it seemed to me 
that you looked with indulgence upon 
these little ones: for them you made the 
sacrifice of your ancient dignity. But 
it has pained me to see you approached 
by gross and heavy hands: under the gaze 
of dull eyes you turn slowly, with a 
reluctance that cannot escape me. 

I should like to fix your attitude, beau¬ 
tiful little image of divinity. To the rest 
of the world I would have you turn your 
acute mocking profile, and keep for me 
alone the secret of your eyes, unexpect¬ 
edly far apart in a countenance that loses 
in full view the irony of its silhouette. 


34 


EVE 

[Rodin] 

Is it of shame, Eve, that you are whis¬ 
pering into your hair, the flood of hair 
that covers your unseen face and fills the 
arms clasped under your bent head? Is 
it shame that has thickened your body 
and prepared it for an endlessness of 
labor and of travail?—I need not see 
your hidden eyes: I know the shadow 
that fills them . . . 

Listen! if it is possible for you to hear 
the echo of a human voice. I have come 
to tell you of the death of shame. The 
god who condemned you has become of 
a different mind. All things are not 
permitted, but all things are understood: 
there is no more sin, there is no longer 
any judgment. 

But you, Eve, are immersed in an 
ecstasy of grief: my words fall unheeded 
upon the mass of hair that hides in its 
depths the heavy sorrow of your 
shrouded face. 


35 


ADAM 

[Rodin] 

The limbs of Adam are heavy and dark: 
it was not so that he walked in the dawn 
of creation tasting the first fruits and 
naming the animals. Adam was made 
quick and slender: his movements were 
those of one who loves to spring from 
rocks, to leap into clear water, to reach 
upward for hanging branches. But now 
his muscles are drawn thick: his 
thoughts are of struggle and of the pain 
of increase.—Adam has forgotten Lilith: 
no one has ever made a statue of that 
lovely witch. 

If I could, I would shape an image of 
her. I would smooth the slippery satin 
of her skin and catch the floating gold 
of her hair. I would pose her like a 
thistledown upon her pedestal, and place 
her in the empty corner streaked with 
sunlight towards which the hollow gaze 
of Adam is forever turned. 


36 


FIGURINE OF TANAGRA 


This little figure of Tanagra has sat for 
her hundreds of years in a delicious atti¬ 
tude of intimacy whose freshness still 
hovers over the head thrown back, the 
hair carelessly knotted, the legs crossed 
one upon the other. In this familiar 
and charming pose the model who served 
for the figurine sat in the garden of the 
artist: leaves fell and flowers closed, and 
the fountain dripped through hours of 
broken speech, of long unbroken silences. 

Your loveliness, little statue, remains 
the reflection cast upon you from those 
far-off beautiful hours passed in the 
garden of the artist who modelled you 
with so much happiness. 


3 7 


CERES 

[Rodin] 

A large fruition is prophesied in your 
broadly sculptured cheeks, Ceres: your 
grave and anxious lips promise richness 
of harvests: your heavy forehead ponders 
the ripening of the fields of swelling 
grain. 

It is your eyes that are strange. 

The brown pools of autumn reflect 
only golden fruits that bend the over¬ 
hanging branches: on the clear surface 
float ripened leaves of bronze and scarlet, 
and the grasses that dip into the shallow 
waves are heavy with seed. 

But in your deep eyes, Goddess, there 
float dreams of a springtime when the 
fruits were all green, when pale flowers 
bent and trembled under the touch of 
the desirous wind. 


38 


MARTYR 

[Rodin] 

It is not so that you should be named, 
you who sleep at last. Although your 
stiff legs, not smoothed into repose, part, 
and, lifted into the air, hold the last 
attitude of torment: although your head 
is wrenched backward and your tight 
throat drawn with the fixed effort of 
endurance: although your young breasts 
are harshly pointed in an ecstasy of 
agonized sensation . . . it is not so that 
I should name you. 

Upon the one who still endures, who 
feels from moment to moment the weight 
of intolerable pressure: the one who 
draws breath painfully in a thickened 
air, and drags on her breaking flesh the 
blackened chains of habitude . . . upon 
this one, by preference, I should bestow 
the name of martyr. 


39 


THE TEMPEST 
[Rodin] 

Storm ! with your strained forehead 
pressed against the rushing air, your 
eyeballs round with terror, your cheeks 
drawn from the shrieking of protruding 
lips— 

Storm, flying from an unknown dread, 
your breath spent in one unbroken 
scream:—deaf from the surging sound 
that beats upon you, blind from the 
buffeting of hideous gusts, deeply and 
horribly lost in the sinking, whirling, 
sickening centre of airless, breathless 
space that sucks you down— 

Storm! For a moment be still. 

It is your breath that engulfs you! 

It is from your own throat that they 
pour, these sounds that fill with terror 
the wideness of your frantic eyes! 


40 


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